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26 Jul
1952: Eva Peron dies

07 Sep
1952: Egyptian army ousts prime minister

05 Nov
1952: Landslide victory for Eisenhower

16 Mar
1953: Marshal Tito makes historic visit to London

08 Apr
1953: Seven years' hard labour for Kenyatta

24 Aug
1954: Brazilian president found dead

02 Dec
1954: US Senate condemns McCarthy

29 Feb
1956: Hopes for Mid East peace mission

18 Jun
1956: Truman rejects anti-Stalin talk

03 Jul
1956: Commonwealth heads honoured

03 Aug
1957: Rahman to lead independent Malaya

01 Jun
1958: De Gaulle returns to tackle Algeria

08 Jan
1959: De Gaulle becomes president

16 Feb
1959: Castro sworn in as Cuban PM

17 Feb
1959: Turkish leader involved in fatal crash

23 Feb
1959: Macmillan and Khrushchev talk peace

31 Aug
1959: Anglo-US TV debate makes history

17 May
1960: East-West summit in tatters after spy plane row

20 Jul
1960: Ceylon chooses world's first woman PM

26 Sep
1960: Kennedy and Nixon clash in TV debate

09 Nov
1960: Narrow victory for John F Kennedy

20 Jan
1961: John F Kennedy sworn in as US president

13 Feb
1961: Ex-Congo PM declared dead

27 May
1963: Kenyatta to be Kenya's first premier

22 Nov
1963: Kennedy shot dead in Dallas

12 Jun
1964: Nelson Mandela jailed for life

14 May
1964: Nasser and Khrushchev divert the Nile

15 Oct
1964: Khrushchev 'retires' as head of USSR

25 Oct
1964: President Kaunda takes power in Zambia

28 Sep
1964: Kennedy murder was 'no conspiracy'

03 Nov
1964: Election triumph for Lyndon B Johnson

28 Jul
1965: US orders 50,000 troops to Vietnam

11 Nov
1965: Rhodesia breaks from UK

07 Feb
1966: Hawaii hosts US-Vietnamese summit

05 Jun
1968: Robert Kennedy injured in shooting

06 Nov
1968: Nixon wins close contest for president

28 Apr
1969: President Charles de Gaulle resigns

25 Jul
1969: Kennedy pleads guilty over car crash

16 Jan
1970: Gaddafi takes over as Libya's premier

02 Mar
1970: Ian Smith declares Rhodesia a republic

19 Mar
1970: Willi and Willy meet in East Germany

01 Oct
1970: Mourners killed as Nasser is buried

10 Oct
1970: Canadian minister seized by gunmen

22 Apr
1971: Haitian dictator dies

07 Nov
1972: Nixon takes second term by landslide

30 Apr
1973: Nixon takes rap for Watergate scandal

31 May
1973: US Senate stops Cambodia bombing

14 Oct
1973: Thai army shoots protesters

25 Nov
1973: Army deposes 'hated' Greek president

01 Dec
1973: Israel's founding father dies

20 Dec
1973: Spanish prime minister assassinated

19 May
1974: Giscard d'Estaing voted French president

29 Jun
1974: First female president for Argentina

23 Jul
1974: Greek military rule gives in to democracy

08 Aug
1974: President Nixon to resign from office

21 Apr
1975: Vietnam's President Thieu resigns

12 Jun
1975: Gandhi found guilty of corruption

29 Oct
1975: Franco's 36-year reign ends

22 Jul
1977: Deng Xiaoping back in power

03 Feb
1978: Sadat in US for Mid East talks

10 May
1978: Italy mourns murdered statesman

22 Aug
1978: Kenya's founding father dies

01 Feb
1979: Exiled Ayatollah Khomeini returns to Iran

13 Mar
1979: Grenada leader ousted by coup

04 Apr
1979: Deposed Pakistani PM is executed

26 Oct
1979: South Korean President killed

07 Jan
1980: Gandhi returned by landslide vote

04 Nov
1980: Reagan beats Carter in landslide

23 Feb
1981: Rebel army seizes control in Spain

30 Mar
1981: President Reagan is shot

26 May
1981: Italy in crisis as cabinet resigns

06 Oct
1981: Egypt's President Sadat assassinated

10 Nov
1982: Brezhnev rumours sweep Moscow

23 Mar
1983: Reagan launches Cold War into space

20 Oct
1983: Grenada's prime minister 'assassinated'

29 Feb
1984: Trudeau resigns as Canada's PM

31 Oct
1984: Indian prime minister shot dead

01 Nov
1984: Violence follows Gandhi killing

11 Mar
1985: Gorbachev becomes Soviet leader

21 Aug
1983: Filipino opposition leader shot dead

26 Apr
1984: Reagan arrives in China

22 Feb
1986: Filipino coup leaders tell Marcos to go

28 Feb
1986: Swedish prime minister assassinated

08 Apr
1986: Eastwood voted mayor by landslide

17 Aug
1987: Hitler's deputy found dead

15 Oct
1987: Fiji one step closer to a republic

02 Nov
1988: Dead heat in Israel elections

14 Feb
1989: Ayatollah sentences author to death

18 Oct
1989: East Germany leader ousted

24 Nov
1989: New era for Czechoslovakia

25 Dec
1989: Romania's 'first couple' executed

02 Feb
1990: De Klerk dismantles apartheid in South Africa

12 Jul
1990: Yeltsin resignation splits Soviet Communists

08 Nov
1990: Ireland elects first woman president

21 May
1991: Bomb kills India's former leader Rajiv Gandhi

25 Dec
1991: Gorbachev resigns as Soviet Union breaks up

07 Feb
1992: Maastricht treaties make EU official

04 Nov
1992: Clinton beats Bush to the White House

02 Oct
1993: Hardline Communists riot in Moscow

10 May
1994: Mandela becomes SA's first black president

14 Oct
1994: Israelis and Arafat share peace prize

04 Nov
1995: Israeli PM shot dead

10 Jan
1996: King of Jordan in historic Tel Aviv visit

19 Jul
1996: 'War criminal' Karadzic resigns

06 Nov
1996: 'Comeback Kid' wins second term

19 Feb
1997: China's reformist Deng Xiaoping dies

15 Apr
1998: Former Cambodian dictator dies

07 Jul
1998: Chief's death sparks turmoil in Nigeria

26 Jan
1998: Clinton denies affair with intern

17 Aug
1998: Clinton admits Lewinsky affair

21 Sep
1998: Clinton's Grand Jury testimony released

25 Nov
1998: 'Corrupt' Turkish government falls

27 Feb
1999: Nigerians vote to break with military

02 Mar
2000: Pinochet escapes torture trial charges

06 Jul
2000: Prime Minister's son arrested for drunkenness

05 Oct
2000: Protesters storm Yugoslav parliament

06 Oct
2000: Milosevic quits, street celebrations continue

16 Jan
2001: DR Congo President Kabila shot

07 Nov
2001: Billionaire mayor for New York

30 May
2001: French ex-minister jailed over sleaze

16 Aug
2003: 'War criminal' Idi Amin dies

11 Sep
2003: Anna Lindh dies of stab injuries

08 Oct
2003: The Terminator takes on California

31 Oct
2003: End of Mahathir era in Malaysia

18 Nov
2003: High security as Bush visits UK

14 Dec
2003: Saddam Hussein captured

03 Nov
2004: George W Bush wins second term

11 Nov
2004: Veteran leader Yasser Arafat is dead

27 Dec
2004: Yushchenko wins Ukraine election re-run

09 Jan
2005: Abbas triumphs in Palestinian elections

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